Classifying the Landscape and dividing the work

Three characteristics to position an architecture

The Architecture Landscape refers to the whole set of descriptions of the Enterprise Architecture. To position each of them, the standard proposes three characteristics. Breadth indicates the subject matter the project covers. Level of detail says how far down the description goes. Time is the planning horizon, the point when the Target Architecture is expected to be reached.

The Study Guide draws this classification as a cube but warns that a real project rarely fits in one cell: it looks more like a sea urchin, with a consolidated center and spikes going in several directions. The model is for reasoning, not for forcing a split.

• Breadth: the subject matter covered by the Architecture Project
• Level of detail: the depth of the description
• Time: the horizon at which the Target should be reached

Three levels of granularity

Levels divide the Landscape by granularity. Together with the Enterprise Continuum, they form the conceptual framework that organizes the Landscape. The lower you go, the more detail increases and the narrower the scope becomes.

• Strategic Architecture (or Enterprise Strategic Architecture): organizing framework for operational and change activity, direction at executive level
• Segment Architecture: the same dual role, with direction and Architecture Roadmaps at program or portfolio level
• Capability Architecture: framework for change and for roadmaps that realize capability increments

Partitioning to develop and govern

An Architecture Partition is a subset obtained by dividing the architecture to make it easier to develop and manage. Partitions are the foundation of architecture governance and remain distinct from levels and from Architecture Continuum concepts: they answer “who works on what”, not “at what level of detail” or “how generic”.

There is no universal partitioning model: each enterprise adopts one that reflects its operating model, usually from the Preliminary Phase. To keep the whole coherent, partitions must be aligned and linked by explicit re-use and compliance rules, so that duplicated or conflicting work is avoided.

• Organizational unit architectures conflict with one another
• Several teams must work at the same time on different elements
• Re-use requires modular segments that can be incorporated elsewhere